


bibere venenum in auro

by hobijam



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Dubious Consent, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 02:10:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8352199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobijam/pseuds/hobijam
Summary: Baekhyun reaches out to touch him, and Chanyeol slaps him across the face.Baekhyun smiles; it's exactly what he wants.





	

**Author's Note:**

> seriously, look out. this is dark.

Baekhyun is seventeen when his mother dies in a car accident. T-boned, at an intersection.  
His father brings an antique pistol to his head just three days later, and suddenly, Baekhyun is an orphan.  
He doesn’t really know how to feel, or if he feels anything at all. For the longest time, he’s been numb, and this is no exception. His body is cold, mind empty. He drifts through life, in a state of radical acceptance when he’s moved across town to his aunt’s house, shares an already crowded room with his cousins Jongin and Sehun. He doesn’t see the disgruntled looks on their faces, doesn’t care that he’s always last to get the bathroom in the mornings.  
He doesn’t care about anything. Not if he eats, not if his stomach rumbles, not if he gets in his homework on time or if his cousins glare at him in passing.  
Not if he lives or dies.  
No one at school bothers him. Normally the bullied kid, the usual oppression lifts. No one knows how to treat the newly orphaned boy, so they tread around him, like he’s a mine. Silence follows him everywhere, like he has the unique power to end a conversation by walking into the room. The outside world seems to match the emptiness that he feels inside himself uncannily.  
Then, on a day like any other, a boy refuses to get out of his way in the hall. Normally, students part around Baekhyun, leaving him his own walkway over the tile like he’s some sort of royalty. But if Baekhyun’s a prince, this boy is a king, and he strides into Baekhyun’s space without a care in the world.  
Their sides brush, Baekhyun’s shoulder reaching to about the boy’s bicep. Something blooms from that contact, a warm, soft brush of flower petals across skin.  
Then, as quickly as it came, it is gone. The tall boy, whom Baekhyun recognizes as his cousin’s friend, Chanyeol, moves away, muttering a quick, ‘watch it.’  
Baekhyun wants to feel that sensation again, wants to experience the wonder of feeling anything at all.  
So he presses his body flush with Chanyeol’s, side to side as they walk in the same direction. The feeling is back, hotter and more intense than last time. Baekhyun sighs, muscles going limp. Chanyeol pauses, looks down, and carefully pulls Baekhyun off him, gentleness disappearing when he slams the other into the lockers on the wall of the hallway.  
Chanyeol pins Baekhyun so his back is to the lockers, hand fisted in the shorter’s shirt. “What are you, a fuckin’ fag?” Chanyeol scoffs, dropping his hand from Baekhyun’s collar and turning away. Baekhyun watches him go, silent. “Whatever. Fucking... Whatever.”  
Baekhyun stands there, back to the lockers, holding his collar gingerly in one hand. He stares at Chanyeol’s retreating back, and gathers up his things, holding them in front of himself to hide his softening erection. 

After the hallway, Chanyeol takes to calling Baekhyun a faggot whenever the two cross paths. It shocks the other students, who think that the best way to deal with a kid who lost both his parents in less than a week is to give him space and silence.  
Chanyeol frequents the convenience mart where Baekhyun works, always there to try to buy something obnoxious, like cigarettes or beer. Baekhyun relishes saying no, loves the way Chanyeol’s eyes light up with anger. The impact of his fist into Baekhyun’s gut brings butterflies to his stomach.  
On a rainy night about a month after the two meet, Chanyeol appears, alone. He buys salt and vinegar chips and a diet coke, and looks Baekhyun dead in the eye when he pays. He tells him to come to his house; there’ll be weed.  
Without thinking, Baekhyun nods. 

Chanyeol’s house was probably the nicest one on the block, at some point. It’s a beautiful Victorian, anyone can see that if they look past the disrepair. Peeling paint is a faded reminder of the once bright colors that covered the outside. The intricate carvings on the eaves and under the edges of the roof are broken off in some places, in others home to bird families. The inside is much like the outside. The floorboards, warped and worn down with years of use, creak whenever Baekhyun takes a step. Wallpaper flakes cover the edges of the floors, like snow on the sides of a trail. The entire house smells of damp laundry underneath the unmistakable odor of cannabis.  
Baekhyun follows the smell to the second floor, where Chanyeol sits at an alcove at the end of the hall. Joint hanging from his fingers, he stares out the window at the stormy sky above.  
“You came.”  
Chanyeol says, without facing Baekhyun. It might be more to himself than to his guest.  
“Where is your family?” Baekhyun asks, walking towards Chanyeol.  
Chanyeol finally drags his reddened eyes away from the window to stare at Baekhyun. “Out. My mother is gone for the weekend, my dad’s been gone since I was five.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
Chanyeol laughs, a hollow, dry sound. Standing up, he looms over Baekhyun and pushes him to the floor. As his body thuds to the ground, knocking over a picture on his way that breaks over his hip, Baekhyun sighs in pleasure.  
Chanyeol glares at him, daring him to stay on the floor and knowing the only way to get Baekhyun up is to lift him himself.  
“Why did you touch me in the hall?” Chanyeol asks, looking down at Baekhyun.  
Baekhyun smiles. “I liked the way you felt.”  
Chanyeol growls, kicks him in the ribs. Baekhyun lets his body go limp, accepts the blows that bring feeling into his body. Chanyeol eventually drags Baekhyun into what he presumes is the taller’s bedroom. The lights are off. In the dark, Baekhyun brings a hand up cup Chanyeol’s face; Chanyeol responds with a harsh slap. He fucks Baekhyun relentlessly, and while their sweaty bodies meld together Baekhyun knows how this is going to be. 

Baekhyun leaves notes in Chanyeol’s locker for weeks. Crumpled things, slipped in between the vents and forgotten about. Chanyeol passes him in the hallway, hissing out slurs and curses, with no acknowledgment of the papers.  
Baekhyun finds himself getting high at school a lot, wandering through the halls and drifting from window to window at the doors to the classrooms. He watches Sehun, Jongin, both in their sophomore classes. He watches Chanyeol. Stares at his red hair, longs to touch it, caress his cheek and kiss his soft, pink lips. Baekhyun wishes to hold Chanyeol, to feel something bloom in both of their chests.  
The school shrink, Junmyeon, finds Baekhyun in the hallway. Drags him back to his office, asks unanswerable questions like, ‘what are you doing? How are you doing?’ Eventually, he tires of Baekhyun, asks him if he needs passes for his cut classes. Baekhyun nods, and leaves.  
He opens his locker and a crumpled note drifts out. Come to my house. 

Again, Chanyeol is high. He’s leaning against the counter of the kitchen, staring at Baekhyun as if daring him to speak. A joint dangles from his fingers, and he occasionally brings it to his lips, breathes out a cloud of smoke. Finally, he extinguishes the joint and sighs.  
“Why did you come back?” Chanyeol asks, something unnameable in his voice.  
Baekhyun swallows, takes a deep breath. “Your note. It was in my locker...”  
Chanyeol slaps him, the force of the blow knocking Baekhyun to the floor. He kicks the shorter, steel-toe boot driving into his side like a hammer. Baekhyun lets himself feel it all, stares into Chanyeol’s angry eyes and dreams about running his fingers through his red hair.  
“My mother always said faggots like you are sick freaks.” Chanyeol mutters. He kicks Baekhyun again, rolls him onto his stomach with the toe of his boot. “Just men who wish they were women, too dumb to do anything but take dicks up their ass.” Ignoring Baekhyun for a moment, Chanyeol shuffles around the kitchen, opens up a cabinet. He takes something out, which Baekhyun guesses is a glass from the sound of it, and how Chanyeol fills it in the sink.  
“What do you think of that, huh?” Chanyeol asks, gasping out a quick breath after chugging his water.  
Baekhyun doesn’t respond. The glass hits the back of his head, and pain explodes behind his eyes. Chanyeol’s boots clod out of the kitchen, and Baekhyun crawls to his knees, scraping his forearms and palms on the glass shards that cover the floor. His erection throbs in his pants, so he takes them off, walking his naked self into the living room where Chanyeol lounges on a couch while sucking on the lip of a beer can.  
“You must want to fuckin’ die.” Chanyeol growls when he sees Baekhyun’s naked body. Baekhyun looks away, towards the window, which, to Chanyeol, must be an insult.  
The taller grabs Baekhyun by the shoulders and throws him to the floor, punches his face until all Baekhyun feels is lightning and thuds, the warmth of blood dripping from his nose as well as the fiery hot bloom of feeling in his chest. Eventually, Chanyeol flips him onto his stomach and pierces him over and over.  
Baekhyun breathes in the musty scent of the shag carpet. A tear escapes from his eye. 

When he gets back to his aunt’s house and drags himself through the door, she drops her plate of food in shock, and screams. Sehun and Jongin run downstairs to see their mother collapse into a chair, and then Baekhyun faints.  
He finds out that Jongin drives them all to the ER, having lifted his mother into the front seat so he at least looked like he was obeying the law. In his state of confusion, the nurses there tearfully check him out, clean his cuts and offer to do rape kit. He remembers that he said no, that he explained there was a man that mugged him and he doesn’t want to bring it to attention that what happened, happened.  
After Baekhyun’s hospital trip, his aunt looks at him with a new feeling in her eyes, something maternal. His cousins still do the same as everyone else, steer clear of him and consider silence and space as the best remedy for his wounds. Baekhyun doesn’t care. He still doesn’t care about a lot of things, maybe everything- except Chanyeol.  
At school, Junmyeon almost cries when he sees Baekhyun, bruises on his arms and neck and face shining purple and green exposed. He pulls him into his office on the daily, always asking questions, always probing for answers Baekhyun can’t give.  
Baekhyun doesn’t stare into Chanyeol’s classes anymore, more often sitting out in the frosty football bleachers and staring at the landscape around himself. He doesn’t think about anything.  
Chanyeol steers clear of Baekhyun at school, and the only time they interact is when they meet at Baekhyun’s convenience store; Chanyeol still buys crazy things, these times something crazy like canned fish or hemp milk.  
“Come to my house.” Baekhyun surprises himself by saying one day, while he’s ringing up Chanyeol’s banana curd. “My parents... house.”  
Chanyeol looks at him inquisitively, expression other than disgust on his face for the first time.  
“I still have keys. My shift ends, like, now.”  
They walk to Baekhyun’s house in silence. Occasionally, when Baekhyun looks up at Chanyeol, the taller meets his eye and pointedly looks away.  
They enter Baekhyun’s house, and by then, Chanyeol is shaking, The life and anger is drained out of his face; he looks ashen. Baekhyun asks if he’s okay, and he nods. Pouring a glass of water for himself, Baekhyun stares at Chanyeol, who stands awkwardly close to him, chest to chest.  
“Uh, listen, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol begins. Baekhyun shivers when he says his name. “I know that your parents are dead and that kinda fucked you up a little- a lot. And I just- I think we should end this. Can we end this?”  
Baekhyun looks away. His eyes flutter shut, and his hand grips the glass enough to make his muscles burn.  
“After everything I’ve done to you, why did you want to see me again?”  
“I just did.” Baekhyun pulls his shirt over his head, exposing the rest of his yellowing bruises to Chanyeol. He takes the taller‘s hands into his own, forming them into fists and taking a step back.  
“Please don’t.” Chanyeol sobs. Baekhyun sighs, runs his hands down Chanyeol’s chest to his pants, cups his hardening penis. Tears run down Chanyeol’s face. “Let me go!”  
He punches Baekhyun, square in the gut. While the boy is bent over in pain, smiling to himself sadly, Chanyeol yells. “Are you fucking happy now? What do you want!”  
He punches Baekhyun again, knocking him across the kitchen. His flying body dislodges the knife block, and the knives clatter to the floor around Baekhyun. Picking up a knife, Baekhyun softly pads over to Chanyeol and places the knife into his hands, curling his fingers around it’s wood handle.  
Chanyeol watches Baekhyun in shock as he hugs the taller, pressing his face into his chest. They stay like that for a few minutes, chests rising and falling together, Chanyeol gripping the knife.  
Baekhyun waits, hoping. 

Though only a few minutes have passed, it feels like Baekhyun and Chanyeol have run a marathon together. Chanyeol quietly places the knife back into the block, and sits down, dropping his head into his hands and staring at his knees. He’s stopped crying, instead just breathing heavily, thinking. Baekhyun rips his gaze away from him, staring instead out the kitchen window at the cars racing by, the stormy sky. The clouds thicken, dropping more and more rain onto the dry earth of his neglected front yard.  
Something explodes inside of him, and suddenly, he feels.  
Baekhyun cries for the first time, big, weeping sobs.

**Author's Note:**

> Based off You Are Not A Stranger Here, The Beginnings of Grief.  
> This in no way portrays how I think of Chanyeol or Baekhyun; I think they are both amazing people who would never participate in a relationship like this. I just wanted to write a dynamic like the Main Character and Gramm's after I read the book.  
> Anyways, hit me up at btsdadd.tumblr.com


End file.
